The invention relates to an installation for producing green malt from steeped barley and/or for storing and continuously dispensing green malt, with a container which is filled from above with barley or green malt.
Malt is required for producing beer. Malt is derived from barley. For this purpose, the barley is at first softened with water and brought to germination. By germination, the barley grains are broken open and the ferments required for beer production are formed. The germinated barley is called green malt.
Hitherto, green malt has been produced by depositing the barley in germination boxes. Turnover vehicles with downwardly projecting turning worms are movably mounted above a plurality of juxtaposed germinating boxes on a rail system and turn over the germinating material. The germinating boxes are air-permeable at the bottom. Since the germinating process proceeds exothermically, it is necessary to eliminate heat. This is accomplished by the introduction of cooled air into the germinating boxes from below. After the green malt has been formed, the germinating boxes are emptied and the green malt is then dried in a kiln system.
The above-described production of green malt proceeds discontinuously. Because of the juxtaposed boxes, the installation requires a relatively large amount of space. The boxes can be filled with barley only up to a specific height, since otherwise the pressure exerted by the upper layers onto the lower layers is too high.
The underlying object of the invention is to provide an installation for producing green malt from barley in which work is carried out continuously and therefore more economically and which, further, requires less space in the way of base surface.